New York is taking on an outsize importance in the Massachusetts race for U.S. Senate.

The Boston Globereported this morning that the incumbent senator, Scott Brown, collected more campaign contributions in New York City during the first three months of the year than in any other locale, including Boston.

Brown, a Republican, raised $141,520 in New York City, barely edging the $138,640 he took in in Boston, according to the latest data from the Federal Election Commission. (The caveat is that only donations over $200 get itemized by the F.E.C., so it's possible small contributors put Boston back on top.)

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Brown's campaign pointed out that more than 70 percent of his donations during the first quarter were from Massachusetts, but the news complicates his effort to portray himself as the local guy running against an elitist carpetbagger.

One New York donation had drawn a lot of attention even before the Globe report. Brown has run ads trumpeting his support of the hometown Red Sox, but accepted $2,500 from Yankees president Randy Levine.

His New York contributors also include several of Mitt Romney's biggest bundlers—Woody Johnson, Lew Eisenberg and John Paulson—along with Republican state chairman Ed Cox, and former George W. Bush campaign manager and Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman.

A searchable database of Warren's first-quarter numbers has yet to be released by the F.E.C.